Voting Rights to present at UUA General Assembly 2010 in the Twin Cities

The MUUSJA/AUW Voting Rights working group will present a workshop highlighting Minnesota's long and successful history of same-day voter registration. "Honoring Inherent Worth of Voters for 36 Years" will feature MN Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and we will learn how Minnesota has successfully used election-day voter registration since 1974 to help achieve the nation’s highest voter turnout. In Presidential election years, 15%-22% of Minnesota's voters register at the polls. Waits are short, voter suppression is minimized, and the recent Franken-Coleman Senate recount and the League of Women Voters MN reaffirmed that claims of voter fraud lack any merit.

Workshop is scheduled for Thursday, June 24, 2010 from 4:30 to 5:45 pm. Visit the UUA's GA site for information on General Assembly 2010. Also at GA, delegates will be considering a new Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI). Voting Rights is working with leaders across the country to advance Revitalizing American Democracy as the next CSAI adopted by our association.

Report: "Minnesota's Elections: Transparent, Verifiable, and Accurate"

On February 25, 2010, two of the leading non-partisan elections groups in Minnesota - Citizens for Election Integrity MN and Common Cause MN - released this well-documented response [PDF, 584k] to a report, issued in Oct 2009 from the conservative think-tank Center of the American Experiment, that used faulty information to cast unfounded doubt on Minnesota's elections systems.

Voting Rights A.I.W. passes at G.A. 2009 in Salt Lake City!

Advocate Pending Legislation Toward Clean, Honest, and Fair Elections in the United States.
The Voting Rights working group worked closely with UUs from Florida, New York and Massachusetts to draft and successfully negotiate the complex and collaborative process to pass an Action of Immediate Witness (A.I.W.) at General Assembly this year.

You can watch Voter Rights co-chair Jenny Thomas present the 2009 A.I.W. on streaming video including its subsequent near-unanimous passage. When the video opens in a new window, slide the time bar to 1:08:12 to see the A.I.W.'s introduction and then Jenny in action!

The A.I.W. leads off saying "As we support the struggles of the Iranian people to have their voices heard and their votes counted, we must ensure the same for voters in the United States, so we can elect leaders who work for the good of all people and who strive for peace and justice in the United States of America and around the world." Read the full text of the 2009 A.I.W.

Also at General Assembly 2009:

Voting Rights presented Bruce Funk, a local Utah election official committed to reform of electronic voting, to participants of GA via a Saturday afternoon workshop titled "Does Touchscreen Voting Violate the 5th Principle?" Pictured L-R are workshop presenters Bruce Funk, Jenny Thomas, Theresa Hommel, Helini Thayer, and Carol Johnson. Audio of this workshop is available from the UUA ($10 fee for MP3/$12 for CD)

And during General Assembly, UU Secretaries of State Mark Ritchie (MN) and Debra Bowen (CA) were co-recipients of the Wilton Peace Prize. After receiving their awards, they were the featured presenters at Friday evening's "Strengthening Democracy Now!" workshop sponsored by the UUA Office of Advocacy and Witness. Mark also took the time to speak to us at a special MUUSJA lunch during the Assembly.

Group Mission/Purpose

1. To protect the right and access to voting for all citizens. We will seek congregational support for voting rights efforts with education, witness and advocacy programs.
2. To ensure that votes cast are counted and reported accurately. We will recruit members to be trained as election audit/review (recount) observers in Minnesota and participate in the national campaign for voter verifiable paper ballots and mandatory audits in all fifty states.